


The Shanona Lake Monster (A Daughter, a Sister, a Brother, a Mother)

by theorangewitch



Series: Angstober [21]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Cryptids, Family, Gen, foster children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 18:05:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16413284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorangewitch/pseuds/theorangewitch
Summary: Stanton was perched somewhat precariously on the edge of the Shanona Swamp. Every year, more of the town was devoured by its edges and Stanton had to expand farther outward away from it. The Nelsons’ house was next, the city planner had told them. Their backyard was Shanona Lake, a still, mosquito-infested body of water, choked with mud and algae. But despite the strain it placed on the town’s resources, Shanona was a protected place. It had once been sacred to the local Native population, and was said to house more than just fish, frogs, and plants.





	The Shanona Lake Monster (A Daughter, a Sister, a Brother, a Mother)

**Author's Note:**

> Angstober Day 25 - Isolation. I kinda went off-prompt for this one? It’s got some loneliness themes in it but not much isolation. And it’s also not very angsty. It’s just that I was thinking about whatever story I was gonna write for today about some lonely person in their apartment buying milk or whatever and then I thought “What if Wallowa Lake Monster by Sufjan Stevens but more literal and wholesome” and so frog mom was born. 
> 
> As usual, the full list of Angstober prompts is in the author’s note of the first work in this series.

When Jenny and Maura Greenshpan moved in with the Nelsons, they didn’t expect to meet a monster. When they first moved in, mostly they were just sad. Only a day prior they’d had to say goodbye to their brother Eli as he was shipped off to Charlotte to live with a different foster family—one who might adopt him, their social worker said, don’t give this up, Eli, just to stay with your sisters. 

Eli was only ten. He still had a chance at adoption where Jenny and Maura didn’t. So they told him to go to Charlotte while they stayed on the coastal plains in the town of Stanton, where, according to their social worker, they’d been born. Not that they remembered the place. 

“We did the right thing,” Jenny said as she walked hand in hand with her sister up the front steps of the Nelsons’ house. It wasn’t quite big enough to be considered a mansion, but it certainly wasn’t small. “Eli will have a loving new family and when I’m eighteen and I can be your legal guardian we can go and visit him. We’ll visit him.” 

“We’ll visit him,” Maura repeated, her voice distant and soft, her gaze wandering up into the cypress trees towering above their heads. 

Stanton was perched somewhat precariously on the edge of the Shanona Swamp. Every year, more of the town was devoured by its edges and Stanton had to expand farther outward away from it. The Nelsons’ house was next, the city planner had told them. Their backyard was Shanona Lake, a still, mosquito-infested body of water, choked with mud and algae. But despite the strain it placed on the town’s resources, Shanona was a protected place. It had once been sacred to the local Native population, and was said to house more than just fish, frogs, and plants. 

“You’ll get leeches,” Mrs. Nelson said when Jenny asked if she and Maura could go wading. 

“And chiggers,” Mr. Nelson added. “Not to mention it’s cursed.”

“It isn’t cursed, George,” Mrs. Nelson said, whacking her husband on the back of the head with a rolled up newspaper. “That’s a load of local hoo-ha.” The Nelsons were a wealthy older couple, with a daughter of their own who was grown and gone. In theory, this made them the perfect foster parents. In Jenny’s experience, there was no such thing. 

“Leeches and chiggers and curses won’t stop me,” Jenny told Maura as they sat on the bus that took them to school. “I’m going wading.” They’d been living in a children’s home in Rocky Mount for the past year or so, and hadn’t been wading since living with a pair of hippies near the Eno River. The sunlight had dappled through the big oak trees and reflected off the water up onto Eli’s face. He’d flashed Jenny a toothy grin. Later, Jenny had caught a crawfish between her palms and shown it to her two younger siblings. They’d been fascinated.

School was always hard, especially in the smaller towns. In Rocky Mount it was fine because the public schools were big enough so that nobody cared when someone new showed up. In Stanton, though, everyone cared. It was nice that the middle and high schools were in the same building so that Maura and Jenny could still see each other during the day, but it was bad because a kid during second period called Jenny “Jenny Greenskin”, and she and Maura instantly had a new nickname. Those were the things most kids latched onto in the small town schools: their somewhat unusual surname and their olive-toned skin. 

At least they had a surname. A lot of the other kids didn’t. At least, not one that came from their parents. “Greenshpan” had come from their father, whom they remembered well. Their mother they remembered very little of, only that she had dark hair and big yellow eyes. Maura, Jenny, and Eli  too, had dark hair and yellow eyes. They were off-putting features to some. One particular foster mother had forced them into multiple meetings with her pastor, trying to discover which demon possessed them. 

After school, Jenny and Maura went wading. September in North Carolina was still hotter than hell. Not that the scummy water provided much relief. Maura splashed up and down, and Jenny hurled a clump of mud at her head, sending it splattering against a tree trunk behind her. 

Jenny was still laughing when Maura grabbed her by the shoulder and pointed. “Jenny, look,” she said. A trail of bubbles were gurgling up from the murky water, moving slowly towards them. 

“What do you think that is? Alligator?” Jenny asked.

Maura shook her head. “Gators don’t live this far north.” She looked a little scared. “We should get out.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Jenny said. “Just some mud bubbling up.”

“I wanna get out,” Maura repeated. 

“Okay. Let’s get out. We have homework to do anyway.” 

So they hiked back up the hill and rinsed off their feet in the spigot in the Nelsons’ backyard. But Jenny couldn’t stop thinking about the lake and what lay beneath the dark water. The bubbles approaching her. The way the algae rippled around them. So in the morning, before anyone else was awake, Jenny went to stand under the navy blue sky up to her knees in Lake Shanona.

And then bubbles came, small at first, and far from the shore, but growing closer and closer and larger and larger until the surface of the water broke and an enormous head emerged. It was a strange creature, green-skinned, with stringy black hair and two giant yellow eyes poking out above the water. It was still half submerged, and it hummed, sending the waves lapping the shore into a frenzy. 

And then it spoke. “Jen…ny,” it said, its voice a low rumble. 

That was when Jenny realized that the Lake Shanona Monster was not an  _ it _ , but a  _ she. Big yellow eyes. Dark hair.  _ “Mama!” Jenny cried, splashing out into the lake and throwing herself against her mother’s forehead. 

“Jenny!” her mother exclaimed back, though it sounded more like, “Chenny.”

“Mama, I missed you,” Jenny said into her wet hair. 

“Missed you too,” Mama replied. “Where Maw-rah?”

“Maura’s asleep,” Jenny told her. “She’s inside that house up there.”

“Eel-lie?”

Jenny’s face fell. “He’s in Charlotte. A family there might adopt him.” 

Mama nodded her enormous head. “Good. Good Eel-lie. Miss my son, though. Miss my daughters.” She lifted up her head so that her mouth was visible above the water. It was huge, a slice of her face carved out from one side of her head to the other. She smiled, three rows of sharp yellow teeth emerging from between her lips. Jenny had missed that smile. “I look out for you. Look out for Maw-rah. Look out for Eel-lie. Look out for Dad, when he still live.” 

“Do you want to see Maura?” Jenny asked. 

“Yes!” Mama cried. “See Maw-rah!”

“Okay, I’ll convince her to come down here after school.” 

She did. That afternoon, Jenny walked her sister down the hill behind the house with her hands over her eyes. “I’m gonna slip, Jenny,” Maura complained, her hands waving around as she attempted to keep her balance. 

“I’ll keep you steady,” Jenny assured her. “This surprise is worth it.”

Maura knew her mother as soon as Jenny uncovered her eyes. “Mama!” Maura cried, splashing into the lake, not caring that she was still wearing her shoes and socks. Mama reached out with her long, webbed fingers and curled her hands around Maura’s shoulders. 

“Maw-rah,” Mama said, her yellow eyes welling up with tears. 

Every afternoon after that, while the Nelsons were deep in the house, watching TV and reading the newspaper, the Greenshpan girls played in the lake with their mother. And one day at school, while she was bored in class, Jenny wrote a letter to Eli. 

“Found Mama!” it read, “She misses you. —Jenny” 

**Author's Note:**

> This story isn’t nearly as fleshed out as it needs to be but between class and work and stuff I don’t have time to write as much per day as I want to :( eventually frog mom will get her day in the sun. And maybe I’ll figure out what she’s a metaphor for.


End file.
